


Holy Night

by Major



Series: The Way Home [2]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, Drama, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Protectiveness, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 18:42:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9002077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Major/pseuds/Major
Summary: It wouldn't be Christmas in Alexandria without gifts, and Negan has something special for everybody.
Sequel to The Way Home.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I had more ideas, so I decided to turn this into a series. I'm not done with them yet, and it turns out Negan isn't either. The holidays, Walking Dead-style.

“Careful,” Aaron warned, reaching up and steadying the ladder as Eric got to the top rung. He plucked a nail from his pocket to put into place on the roof on the side of their house. The front was mostly done. He was just doing finishing touches now.

They had enough going on without him having to worry that Eric was going to fall off a ladder and break his neck decorating their house for Christmas of all things. Being Jewish just made it weirder. There was a box of lights sitting on the porch to be strung up when he was ready for them, and the whole thing was ridiculous, really, but Aaron couldn’t bring himself to point that out. Eric knew. It just didn’t matter. Something comforting that had no place in this new world may have been the point at its core. Aaron held on to Eric with his eyes squeezed shut when he needed to go back to another time, an easier happier one. Maybe Eric needed Christmas lights for that.

They estimated that it was about December, midway maybe (or November if they were really off), and Father Gabriel had proposed a fantasy Christmas. Aaron was surprised when Eric latched onto the idea so enthusiastically.

Eric wobbled up top as he reached across the rain gutter for the nail he fumbled, and Aaron’s arms shot up to catch him if he slipped, only relaxing when he was steady on his tiptoes again.

He frowned. “Do you want me to do it?”

Eric tapped the nail with the hammer a couple times. “I’ve got it. Stop fussing.”

“I’m not fussing,” he argued. “I’m being logically concerned about the idea of you at the top of a ladder with a hammer. Do you not recall the _one day_ you lasted doing Habitat for Humanity? You kissed me goodbye after breakfast and said you were going to build a village of McMansions for the poor. You came back that afternoon with a splint on your thumb and retired from your architectural ventures.”

Eric looked down over his shoulder and stifled a laugh at the memory. “Oh yeah.”

“It’s not funny,” Aaron said despite the smile he couldn’t quite suppress from sight. “You with a hammer is not funny. It’s terrifying.”

“This isn’t construction. It’s decorating. I’m not building; I’m designing. Think of it like that.”

“I’m not sure the semantics will matter when we’re in the infirmary with your severed thumb in an ice chest.” Aaron returned to his role as the safety net as Eric got back to it but turned, arms still up warily, as Rick rounded the house and walked over. “Hey.”

“Hi!” Eric beamed over at Rick with a wave, and it was probably bordering on pathetic that his smile could still plow into Aaron’s chest the way it did, bulldozing however briefly, over the toxic anxiety that existing in their world brought on.

“How you doing?” Rick asked, skepticism clear behind his friendly expression. He couldn’t blame him.

There were dead people clawing at the walls, and they were hanging wreaths and stockings inside, his very first. Eric wrote their names on them with glitter pens. Glitter pens had survived the apocalypse. They weren't the only house taking part on the block, but he got the feeling that Alexandria was broken down into tiers for Rick. Tier One consisted of his core group, the people he relied on, who had been through it and understood what the world was more than the others that were more sheltered. Aaron had been pulled closer to Tier One after everything they had been through, was maybe already in that bracket now (and Eric by extension), so seeing his A-Team (or at the very least, B-Team) partaking in the holiday delusion was probably skirting Rick's tolerance levels.

“Great. Are you going to midnight mass?”

Aaron almost winced at the question. Rick didn’t strike him as the church going type. Maybe he had been before, but _before_ was a lifetime ago. They definitely weren’t the church going type. They failed at observing their own religious holidays. They snuck bourekas during Yom Kippur when his mom wasn't looking. He wasn't sure how they transitioned from being fasting failures to putting cardboard reindeers in their yard. Eric was weirdly into the festivities, and he was just going with it. He couldn’t take him to a movie or out to get an Orange Julius anymore, but he could sit next to him and listen to Father Gabriel’s sermon if it would make him happy.

“I—maybe,” Rick answered, noncommittally, moving his head side to side. “Might take the kids. Lori, my wife from before, she used to get me and Carl over there for that, so me and Michonne might take them.”

“I hope you do.”

Rick nodded.

“Did you need something?” Aaron asked before Eric could wrangle him into helping with the lights. Going to church to honor the memory of a loved one, he could see, but Rick on his roof dragging a Santa cutout into place was pushing the limits of his fantasy abilities.

“I do.” Rick came closer, and Aaron’s attention went sharp.

He learned to never take anything Rick said they needed lightly. He understood this world better than any of them. When he could contribute to keeping them afloat, he did his best to step up in whatever way was needed.

“Rosita passed what she thinks was a gun range while she was out. It was back from the road, the sign covered. It’s probably cleaned out, but it’s worth a look.”

“Worth a good one, I’d say.”

Rick nodded. “She’s too beat to go back out right now. I need a group to drive out, see what we’re looking at.”

“Absolutely.”

Tara appeared from around the house and walked towards them with the box of decorations she said she’d bring over from the storage she found in one of the houses. He nodded to her in greeting, and she wiggled her fingers where she was gripping the box in a wave.

Eric started climbing down the ladder. “Of course. We’ll go get our bags and head out.”

Aaron looked back at him quickly. “No, stay here. I’ll take Daryl.”

He paused midway down.

“Why?”

“You’re busy.”

It was a lot easier than saying he couldn’t get the image of pulling walkers off him in the back of Negan’s truck out of his head, and the idea of him being in danger scared the hell out of him far more than the idea of putting himself in danger.

“I’m putting up lights,” Eric countered, and his tone made it clear that he definitely knew it was ridiculous and should be prioritized somewhere far lower than possibly replenishing their weapons supply. “Besides, everything’s done except for this side. I can finish when we get back.”

“Eric,” he locked eyes with him and hated to have to push this, especially with Rick and Tara standing right there, “no. Okay? I’ll go out with Daryl and be back in time for mass, I promise.”

“Aaron—”

“ _No._ ”

Eric pushed back, baffled, “Why?”

“Because you’ll get yourself killed! You’ll get me killed! Daryl knows what he’s doing. You don’t. Just stay here.”

Eric blinked at him and fell silent. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Rick staring pointedly at the ground, angled away from them, but the damage was done. Rick was trapped in an awkward domestic squabble, and Eric was pissed.

He flipped around on the ladder and stomped back up to the top so hard that each rough step made the whole metal base rock. He snatched the hammer back from the roof and started lining up another nail.

“Eric—”

Hammer met nail with far more aggression than it had a minute ago.

“Eric,” he tried again. “Come down before you knock yourself off.”

Eric smiled down at him, but it was an angry smile that didn’t come out very often. He could remember seeing it during his first birthday party after they got together when his ex had shown up, gotten drunk, and forgotten they were exes. Not a fun night. Something told him this wouldn’t be one either.

“I can’t leave the walls. I can’t decorate the house. Do you want to write me an itinerary before you leave, so I know what I’m allowed to do?”

Rick completely turned his back on them at that, sharing a look with Tara whose eyes went wide and stayed purposefully averted, lips quirking.

“Eric,” he started, but he was back hammering the nail loudly to drown him out.

Tara set the box down in the grass and tapped his arm. “I can spot him while you’re gone.”

He sighed after a while of being utterly ignored by Eric and gave up, thanking her and walking off with Rick. He glimpsed Eric, tight-lipped and scowling, a final time before they rounded the house and started down the street.

“I’m sorry about that,” he said, and Rick shook his head to dismiss it. “I just. I can’t deal with him being out there anymore. Everything going on, everything we’ve seen—I need him here.”

Rick didn’t fight him on it. “I get it. Every time I take Carl out or Michonne, I wonder, am I taking them out to die? Am I leading my family to the slaughter? But every time we get back, I’m reminded that part of the reason we did is because nobody has your back like somebody who loves you. Somebody you’re a part of. That kind of bond is a weapon and a shield.” He met his eyes and half-shrugged. “Something to consider.”

Aaron went quiet as they walked for the gate. Protecting Eric had become such a default that it was hard to approach it from a different angle. So much of life now was reduced to forcing safety in a world that wasn’t safe. Every day they were still alive was defeating the impossible.

He was about to ask where Daryl was when a commotion in the community drew their attention to the side. He looked to Rick, but Rick processed danger faster. He took off in the direction of the noise. Another impossible day. Aaron ran after him.

He shouldn’t have been surprised since they couldn’t count on anything anymore, but he still flinched when they reached the community graveyard and found Negan there with a group of armed men. Any chance of sneaking off to check out the possible stash at the abandoned gun range went out the window.

Negan was standing beside Maggie’s false grave, the one Father Gabriel was smart enough to use to cover for Maggie and keep her off of his radar. The grave was dug up. Negan was smiling down into the empty hole.

“Oh heya, Rick. Did you know bodies _dissolve_ into dirt after just a few months? Just vanish. Gone.” He turned and smiled. “Or _maybe_. One of my guys was right when he said he spotted your girl while he was out shopping for me. Is that right, Rick? ‘Cause you told me she died. Did I mourn that fine ass for nothing? She get an address change? Now either you knew that and made this incredibly melodramatic grave in her honor. Or! You played a fast one on me. That does not strike me as very nice.”

Rick was frozen, and Aaron knew how much it cost him to stand there and take it. Rick wasn’t a man that stood still, but any action he made would get himself or all of them killed. He wasn’t frozen in fear; that much he knew. Rick stayed still to save them all.

Negan nodded to one of his guys, a bearded broad-shouldered man he remembered getting called Horton on their last encounter. Horton grabbed a woman from the group of spectators and hauled her forward by the back of the neck. Rick took an inch forward, but Negan shook his finger to freeze him in submission. Horton tied her wrists and ankles with rope.

It was Jane Laurie. She mostly kept to herself and took care of her garden. Aaron watched the terror on her face in dismay as Negan wrapped an arm around her shoulders, Lucille hanging from his other hand, and grinned at her like they were old pals.

“See now, honey, I don’t want to kill you. Killing women is a buzzkill for me. I would much rather kill that guy or that guy or that guy,” he pointed to random men in the crowd, “but eye for an eye is the law of the land. Far as I can tell, you’re the hottest chick within reach, and you’ve gotta stand in for their lady friend. See, lying makes me uneasy. Will you make me feel better, will you do that for me? All you gotta do,” he hugged her to his side, eyes sliding to Rick as he said, “is fill this nice grave they dug. Be a shame to let it go to waste.”

He gave her a hard shove, and she collapsed into the bottom of the grave. Jane screamed, and Aaron’s heart was racing so hard that each thump felt like a threat to stop beating altogether.

“Cover her up, boys.”

His lackeys grabbed shovels and started piling dirt back in over her. Jane kept screaming but couldn’t get up, especially with heaps of dirt raining down on her from both sides.

“Grab a shovel, Rick. Be rude not to help, wouldn’t it?”

Aaron’s eyes moved to Rick, horror creeping up over the sick feeling in his stomach.

Negan pulled out his secret weapon to get Rick moving. Another man yanked Carl into view and shoved him forward, knocking him to his knees. Rick started and froze. Negan leveled a gun at Carl’s head and nodded towards the grave.

“Help ‘em out, Rick. Please?”

Carl stared up from the ground. “Dad, don’t.”

Aaron wasn’t sure how many times they could do this, get dragged down to their absolute base and have to crawl back to some tiny glimmer of normalcy. It was the only way to keep sane, but so much now was too much. It was too much.

But Rick stepped forward and grabbed a shovel.

“Let’s lower the volume on those screams, huh? She is shrill as hell.”

Rick jammed his shovel into the mound of dirt, stared into the grave where Jane looked up at him, terrified and helpless, and showered the dirt down over her head. Negan laughed. Aaron thought he was going to be sick.

By the time the grave was completely filled in, the sun had finished setting, and darkness encapsulated the night. Jane’s screams had stopped a foot of dirt ago.

And a few blocks away, Aaron’s house lit up in bright multicolored Christmas lights.

His heart wrenched in his chest as Negan swiveled towards it. For a long moment, he looked genuinely bewildered by the sight of it before amusement crawled back over his expression.

“Is it Christmas already?” Worse than his depravity was how happy it all made him. Arms spread wide, Jane forgotten, he squinted in the distance for a better look.

Eric had wrapped strings of lights around the porch rails and every pole, strung even lines up the front and sides of the house from the ground up and covered the roof in white icicle lights. It was beautiful and whimsical and a huge target.

Rick gave him a look, but he wasn't sure what it was trying to convey. Don't react? Don't panic? He just helped bury a woman alive for the good of the many. Aaron wasn't sure he had that kind of sacrificial streak in him, not when it came to Eric.

Negan marched for the house, and everyone followed. Aaron was glad for small mercies when Eric wasn’t outside admiring his handiwork. He must have gone in for something. Or maybe he heard or saw what was going on and found somewhere to hide to ride out Negan’s visit. They needed to discuss panic rooms and escape routes.

Negan was tickled to the core at Eric’s display. He spun around with a loud clap of his hands and beamed at the four foot inflatable snowman, giving its carrot nose a squeeze.

“Do you have carolers around here too, handing out cookies while they croon about silent nights? I _would_ call this a holy night. All is calm. Jane sure is. Jane is coasting through the night, you know it. But all _could_ be brighter! How can we help you there? I’ve got an idea. Rick, this was originally for your house, but this place will do. Horton! Let’s light this place _way_ up!”

Aaron twisted around in time to see Horton raise the bazooka Negan confiscated from Rick’s armory and fire a shot off directly at his house with Eric. The effect was instantaneous. It tore a hole in the front, went straight through, and the sound of the explosion rocked them out on the road. Aaron stumbled sideways, arm up to shield his face from the blast. Fire erupted in the house with the sound of the infrastructure caving in, and a scream wafted from deep inside through the deafening damage. Eric.

Fear clutched Aaron in a vice.

The house rumbled. The inside was imploding, and more screams escaped to the street.

Aaron shot forward at a run.

Negan grabbed him around the chest and threw him to the pavement. He scrambled back up on all fours and shot back for the house.

“Aaron!” Rick hollered.

“Stay down,” Negan demanded, but Aaron struggled back to his feet and tried for the house again.

Negan threw him down with a raise of Lucille, but Rick dodged in front of the arc of the bat and shoved Aaron back to the road.

“Stay down,” he ordered in his ear as he fought him to his knees on the road. “You can hear him. He’s alive. You keep on, he’ll kill him just to watch you watch that. Stop. Moving.”

It was the hardest thing in his life to stay still when he knew Eric needed him. He got a taste of what it was like for Rick to stand still to save lives. Aaron had to stay still. He could stay still for Eric.

He shook in his spot on the road, gaze glued to the house where the screams had stopped. Just like Jane’s had.

His eyes watered. Ice gripped him, but he did not move.

“What is _with_ you?” Negan demanded, looking back and forth between him and the house. He went giddy at the realization. “Ohhh. Oh-ho-ho. Was your twink in there? This is a Christmas tragedy. Jesus _wept_. I wouldn’t worry about it. The apocalypse has brought on a truly unfortunate shortage of ladies. There’s gotta be a few straight dudes around willing to get bent to take the edge off.”

Aaron stared up at him, trembling with the effort to keep still, and Negan put a hand over his heart and went on torturing him, “Unless you have a pendulum dick? You could have one of my wives as a personal apology. My treat? No. Well, I’ll tell you what. You find me something cool on my next trip over, a Little Debbie factory or a grand piano or something, and I promise to deliver the next swishy waif I come across. Deal? Okay.”

Aaron almost got to one knee. Rick shook his head sharply, jaw set, and he went still.

“You guys have a lovely day.” Negan swung Lucille as he turned back for the gate and whistled for his men to follow. Arms out, bat raised, his voice boomed with a parting, “Merry Christmas!”

People came out of the woodwork when Negan was gone. They ran out of houses and hurried to the blast site. Aaron was running for the door while Rick was still shouting orders, getting them organized to tackle the disaster protocol for a fire and hollering for a group of them to dig up Jane and see if she could be resuscitated.

Aaron plowed through the front door and immediately coughed into his elbow. The whole first floor was on fire, and smoke was clogging up the air that wasn’t in flames.

“Eric!” he shouted. “Eric, where are you?!”

He didn’t answer, but three loud bangs signaled to him from below. His head whipped back and forth before he traced it to the basement and took off for the access door in the kitchen. That room took a massive hit. The counters were in flames, the island was obliterated. The wall beside the door was destroyed, and he saw the problem immediately as he threw the door open.

The explosion collapsed that half of the kitchen in places that knocked out the structure of the basement below it. The staircase leading down caved in and crumbled with most of the ceiling in that area directly on top of where Aaron could hear the banging.

He got a grip on the remaining part of the handrail and hopped the distance from the top steps to the lower ones over the massive gap where a chunk was just gone now.

“Eric?” He rushed down and started squinting through the pitch black darkness. “Eric!”

“Here. I’m here.” He sounded breathy and shocked but not dead. Not dead.

He rushed to the rubble and knelt down as footsteps overhead started pounding through the house. He shouted for them to come to the basement and was grateful to see flashlight beams pointed downward and making it easier to see as he searched. Rick found a way down, and Daryl - hidden from sight while Negan was there - soon followed.

Rick tossed him another flashlight, and he scanned the area in front of him with rapid swipes back and forth.

“I’m here,” Eric said again.

Aaron knelt and threw broken wood up and off the area where his voice was coming from. Eric coughed as his head and shoulders were revealed. Relief flooded through him. Not dead. Not dead.

Clutching his face in his hands, he bent down and kissed him twice upside down, hard and fast, before leaning up to start pulling more rubble off of him.

“You’re okay,” he promised, because it was true, because it couldn’t be any other way, because if Eric was okay so was he.

“Eric,” Rick got to them and knelt near where his legs must have been buried as he inquired urgently, “is Tara in the house?”

“No. No. She left a while back. I came down to get more decorations. What’s going on?”

“Negan,” Rick answered simply, and there was enough hatred infused in the name to speak for itself.

“Oh darn, did I miss him?” Eric’s voice was wane but wry. “Got my own hello, I guess.”

Daryl threw a slab of metal off of him and growled, “Yeah, and I got a goodbye for him.”

Aaron had one of his own.

“How bad is it?” he asked, quieter than he intended but muffled with emotion he couldn’t control. “Can you tell?”

They needed to get the infirmary ready. They didn’t have a doctor, but they would figure it out. They would make do. He would carry him all the way to Maggie’s compound with the doctor if that was what it took.

“I feel okay,” Eric started, but it was obvious he was holding back, didn’t want to scare him. “Except for my left leg. I think that leg is cursed.”

Aaron laughed for Eric’s benefit, but his mouth went dry. He felt like he swallowed rocks, and they dropped straight to the pit of his stomach.

“How bad?”

He shrugged, but his hand went to Aaron’s thigh and squeezed for comfort. “I’m stuck on something.”

The way he said it, tight, eyes dark, shot warnings through him. He didn’t think he just had something wrapped around his ankle.

One by one, more people came down with lights and extra hands to clear space and dig him out.

Eric’s eyes roamed over everyone helping out, and he smiled.

“Look. All the firemen are here.”

“Yeah,” Aaron said as he lifted a particularly heavy chunk off his chest area and hauled it away. It was good to keep him talking and distracted until he got a handle on what they were dealing with. “We should take their pictures and make a calendar. Trade it for food and weapons with other camps.”

“Who would be Mr. January?”

Aaron tossed him a look, eyebrow raised. “You don’t think I’m up for it?”

When he didn't answer, Aaron moved his flashlight beam back to him. Eric was wincing in pain and started to pass out.

“ _Eric_.” Aaron abandoned the rescue team and pat his face, clutching his hand and giving him a shake.

He came around, face still tight with pain, but struggled to stay alert. “Let… Let Daryl and Rick compete for it.”

Either would sell more calendars with their pictures on the cover than his, admittedly.

“Okay. Yeah,” he agreed, staying put at his side and holding his hand tightly in his. “How about Eugene? Can he get in on that?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a fireman with a mullet,” Eric said doubtfully.

“Oh, they all have mullets. It’s a rule in the fireman handbook,” he assured him. “You just can’t tell because they stuff it up under their yellow hats. Protocol. Mullets are too flammable to hang free.”

His eyes fluttered open and shut a few times, but he swallowed thickly and nodded. “Then definitely. Eugene for Mr. January.”

“It’s settled. I’ll get the camera. You get the uniforms.”

Upstairs, the fire was roaring and the foundation gave a loud creak before more debris came raining down. Aaron threw himself over Eric, covering his body and shielding his arms around his head as he leaned over him. Chunks from above hit his back and sides in bruising blows. He shook it off and kept ready at his side.

Eric smiled softly and squeezed his hand. “Aaron, our house is on fire.”

“Yes, it is.”

So were all of their belongings, their clothes, and all of the decorations Eric spent the past week on, trying to create one happy thing in a world that forgot how to do that.

Eric’s smile was watery. “You need to go.”

That wasn’t even up for debate. “As soon as you’re free.”

“The smoke is getting too thick.” Just about everyone was dropping low and scrabbling with the debris from the floor as they coughed through their efforts to help. “You need to go.”

The sad fear for himself and for Aaron broke his heart and made him angry. If he thought he was just going to leave him down there, that he would abandon him to suffocate, burn or be crushed, he’d have more to contend with after this than just a house fire and a bazooka.

Rick surprised him by speaking up first, firm and strong in the voice that never allowed room for argument. “We are not leaving you. One more minute, that’s all. You aren’t dying down here. Negan is not taking one more thing from us. He is not taking you. You get that?”

His words inspired a resurgence of energy among the others. Michonne, Daryl, Carl, Rosita: everyone found extra reserves of strength and moved faster and harder despite the depleting oxygen.

“Yes, sir,” Eric replied, and Aaron would have laughed if he wasn’t so close to crying.

Daryl caught his eye a moment with a short half shake of his head. “He ain’t taking him.”

They dug and scraped and pushed and fought, and it was every day in a nutshell, defeating the impossible.

It sounded like thunder rolling as the second story began to crumble and break. It was collapsing on the first floor. They needed to get out of there before all of that came barreling down on the lowest level. Aaron wouldn’t leave without Eric either way. He’d rather not survive than not live.

“I’m sorry,” Eric murmured, and Aaron peered at him in confusion. “I was mean to you. I didn’t say goodbye. I let you leave without telling you to make it back. You shouldn’t have to go out with me if you don’t want to. You’re right. I can’t help you the way the others can. It’s not the same as recruiting.”

Aaron pushed his hair from his face, thumb tracing over his forehead, and shook his head. “I want you with me. Always. Of course I do. _You_ were right. You should come with me. You will. When we get out of here, and you’re better. We’ll go out together, like we used to. I just didn’t want you to be somewhere where you’d be in danger.”

Eric’s fingers tightened around his, and his weak smile was sympathetic, eyes glittering with something close to amusement but closer to pain. “I think that’s everywhere now.”

They were pulling him out of the smoking remains of their shattered home.

“Yeah. That’s everywhere.”

With a loud groan, Daryl, Rick and Michonne lifted the huge final piece of falling staircase from over Eric’s lower half. They moved it aside and dropped it, flashlight beams swinging back to him. He was right. He looked perfectly fine. Except for that cursed left leg.

There was a long, curved piece of black piping stabbed straight through his calf from the bottom and out the top, scraped across the bone. Aaron grimaced.

“Is it bad?” Eric asked, eyes set determinedly upwards.

“It’s not bad,” Michonne said, and bless her for it, because Aaron was choked silent at the gruesome sight of the injury.

“Here’s what we’re gonna do,” Rick ordered, and everyone got into position around Eric. Aaron did his job, leaning over his chest to block his view, clutching his hand, and giving him a pained smile for strength. “Now!”

The others pulled Eric’s leg up over the long pipe, scraping it through the wound as it lifted. Eric’s scream was high and long and ripped straight through Aaron’s heart to an animalistic place that held him tightly to him and wanted to destroy the thing responsible for that cry. When his leg was loose and Aaron pulled back, Eric was crying freely.

“It’s okay. It’s okay,” he gave him whispered promises as Michonne ripped up part of her shirt to tie around the wound.

“Do you got him?” Daryl asked as Aaron lifted him up and over his shoulder. He was charged with fury and a much deeper, much stronger need to protect.

“I have him,” he answered without any doubt.

Daryl gave him a nod, and they started the trek back up, but the kitchen was engulfed in flames. Rick turned back at the entrance and slammed the door shut again.

“No way out. Not this way.”

“Windows.” Aaron started for the wall, adjusting Eric’s weight over him, and the others started grabbing everything sturdy enough to form a pile to reach the windows in the gap between the ground and first story.

Rick grabbed Michonne by the thigh and waist and gave her a boost up and out. She hooked her torso over and pulled her legs out after her, turning quickly and reaching for Carl. He climbed out with ease, pushed up by his dad and pulled out by Michonne. Next was Eric. Daryl helped him hoist him up and out to Michonne and Carl. Once he was in a decent sitting position laying down, he was able to help push himself backwards into the yard.

The second Eric was free, relief nearly knocked him off his feet.

Daryl and Rick got him up and out and followed after the rest of the group. Rick was last out, the captain with his ship.

Eric slumped against him in the yard when they limped far enough away to be safe, and they stared up at their home go up in flames from the grass. Daryl ran off to bring a car around to drive him to the infirmary without jostling the wound and making it any worse. Tara ran over, smudged with dirt, with news on Jane that was conveyed with a tight shake of her head. The Grimes family was standing a few feet ahead, Rick, Michonne and Carl in a row, staring up as the red and green, blue, orange, and white holiday lights flickered and popped out, leaving only fire behind to break through the dark.

It consumed the house and everything in it. Eric made it out. He could live without that stuff. He could live.

“It’s over,” Eric murmured, face pressed against his chest as he watched the fire rage.

Rick shook his head. “No, it’s not.”

Michonne looked to him for a long moment, heard the fight beneath the words, and turned her eyes back to Aaron.

“No, it’s not,” she repeated.

Carl didn’t tear his gaze away from the crumbling house. “It’s not.”

Watching his home burn, he held Eric tighter against him, and nodded. They still had each other. They were still alive. They were still there to face the impossible and defeat it. That counted for something. It counted for everything. It meant it wasn’t over.


End file.
